House Oversight and Reform Committee

The Parler social media website is displayed on a cell phone in New York City on March 5, 2021. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Social media platform Parler said it had referred violent content from its platform to the FBI ahead of the breach at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Parler made the disclosure in a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, in response to the panel’s request for documents. The company said that it had referred “violent content and incitement” from its platform to the FBI over 50 times before Jan. 6. It also warned the bureau about “specific threats of violence being planned” about the Jan. 6 incident.

“Parler now writes to set the record straight and provide new information about the positive role Parler played in the days and weeks leading up to January 6th, which should finally put an end to the spurious allegations against the Company,” the letter, penned by Parler’s attorney Michael S. Dry, stated.

The information is the latest in an ongoing feud between Parler and big tech companies that had sought to terminate the platform’s operation following the Jan. 6 incident. Apple and Google removed Parler from its app stores, while Amazon removed the platform from its web hosting service. All three companies took issue with the company’s alleged lax approach to violent content posted by its users and “repeated violations” of their terms of service related to such violent content.

Parler has denied the allegations and argued that the big tech companies had colluded against it as it had not taken action against competitors like Twitter and Facebook, which had similar content on their platforms regarding Jan. 6. Parler has also sued Amazon for a breach of contract, defamation, and anticompetitive behavior.

“There is no truth to the absurd conspiracy theories that have been put forth by Big Tech and its media allies to unfairly malign the company and which were referenced in the Committee’s Letter,” Parler said, according to the letter. “Contrary to what has been reported, and as explained in more detail below: the company is and always has been American-owned and controlled; Parler has never engaged in any collusion with ‘the Russians’; and Parler never offered President Donald J. Trump an ownership interest in the company.”

In its letter, Parler said that the company recognizes “legal limits to free speech” and that its policies “have always prohibited threats of violence and incitement on its platform.” It said that it had developed a “strong working relationship with the FBI” to foster cooperation with law enforcement, and ensure that unlawful incitement and violent threats were reported in a timely manner.

The company added that it had formalized its working relationship with the FBI in November 2020 and began to regularly forwarding screenshots of unlawful posts that called for violence or merited additional investigation for public safety. Such posts include users threatening to kill politicians and former Attorney General Bill Barr.

Parler said it had also alerted the FBI in December to content about specific threats of organized violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

The company also sought to underscore the alleged unbalanced scrutiny of the platform, arguing that, out of 270 Justice Department charging documents it had perused, 80 percent of social media references related to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, while only 5 percent mentioned Parler.

The letter also denied other accusations that had been lodged against the platform, including alleged collusion with Russian businesses and alleged discussion with former President Donald Trump aides to offer the former president an ownership interest in the company.

“This is also false,” the letter states. “Based on our review of documents and interviews of relevant individuals, we have identified no evidence that Parler ever negotiated with anyone to provide former President Donald Trump with a personal ownership interest in the company.”

Parler went under leadership restructuring following its dispute with big tech. Former Parler CEO John Matze, who co-founded the company, said he was fired following a dispute with one of Parler’s investors, Rebekah Mercer, over content moderation. Matze said this week that he has filed a lawsuit against the company.

Source: Parler Says It Informed FBI Over 50 Times About Violent Content Before US Capitol Breach

President Donald Trump speaks to the media before departing the White House to Joint Base Andrews en route to San Diego, Calif., on March 13, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

The House Oversight and Reform Committee reissued its subpoena seeking to gain access to President Donald Trump’s financial records, according to a court filing.

The subpoena renews a request to Trump’s accounting firm Mazars USA to hand over eight years of financial records involving the former president and his business as part of a probe into allegations about the president’s financial statements.

Trump went to the federal court to challenge the original subpoena to block its enforcement shortly after it was issued in April 2019. That subpoena expired in January when new lawmakers took office.

Attorneys for each party in the case informed the judge on Tuesday that the subpoena had been reissued by the new Oversight panel to Mazars on Feb. 25. They also submitted a schedule on how the parties would proceed with the case while asking the court to set a date for a hearing.

The subpoena shows a return deadline of noon on March 11, but the lawyers said the Oversight panel “agrees to voluntarily stay the return date of the subpoena pending this Court’s resolution of the subpoena’s enforceability.”

Lawyers for Trump and Mazar did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment on the renewed subpoena.

Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a memo on Feb. 23 that the committee during the 117th Congress will continue targeting Trump for its investigation into presidential conflicts of interest, saying that his financial documents are crucial to “verify key facts and tailor legislative reforms to be as effective and efficient as possible.”

“Donald Trump’s unprecedented actions as President—including his refusal to divest from his ‘complex and opaque financial holdings’—have laid bare several apparent weaknesses and gaps in the laws and regulations governing presidential financial disclosure, conflicts of interest, and emoluments,” Maloney wrote.

Trump has repeatedly called the investigations seeking his financial records a continuation of a political “witch hunt,” while his lawyers and former Solicitor General Noel Francisco have raised questions in court about whether there are any legitimate legislative purposes for issuing the subpoenas. Instead, the lawyers said the House sought the records to harass the president, “expose personal matters and conduct law enforcement activities beyond its authority.”

The case relating to the oversight committee subpoena went through months of litigation before it arrived at the Supreme Court in 2020. It was combined with a separate case where Trump was challenging a different subpoena issued by the Financial Services and Intelligence committees seeking financial records from two of his banks.

In both cases, the district courts denied his requests to block the subpoenas, and the decisions were upheld on appeal. Trump then asked the Supreme Court to review the cases.

The top court in July 2020 sent the pair of cases back to the lower courts for another review because those courts had not taken into account the “special concerns regarding the separation of powers.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, said the lower courts should “perform a careful analysis that takes adequate account of the separation of powers principles at stake, including both the significant legislative interests of Congress and the ‘unique position’ of the President.”

The analysis should include considering whether the asserted legislative purpose justifies the need for the president’s information, whether the scope of the subpoena is limited enough so that it would still support the legislative objective, and looking at the evidence Congress has provided to “establish that a subpoena advances a valid legislative purpose,” Roberts said.

In a separate case, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has obtained Trump’s tax returns after the Supreme Court ruled that it wouldn’t block the documents from being released to Vance’s office. Vance had sought the documents as part of a criminal probe.

Source: House Committee Reissues Subpoena for Trump’s Financial Records